[The Society of Renal Pathology (1948-1949)]

Founded in 1948 under the leadership J. Hamburger, the Société de pathologie rénale played an important role for the development of what will become within 10 years a new discipline, Nephrology. Our discipline is unique since it does not come from internal medicine but from fundamental biology which is needed to analyze and understand the normal and diseased kidney. In the Société, where European and Francophone investigators met, several aspects of Nephrology were presented, discussed and sometimes solved such as acute renal failure and its treatment by peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis, electrolytic disorders and their correction sin intensive care units, renal biopsies in primitive and secondary renal diseases. In 1959, this society became Société de néphrologie, preceding the first international congress of Nephrology, another success of J. Hamburger.